Hola!

     Well, the Lord threw me a pretty big curveball this week. We got changes on Saturday night....I was expecting us both to stay in Armas for one more change. Elder Willie got his call from the AP, because he went up to zone leader this change! So that means he´s going to another zone, and I was left to wonder who was coming to Armas. We got the call from our zone leader, and he said that I was leaving too....Right now, I´m in Zitácuaro (see-talk-wuh-dough) in the state of Michoacan. I took a 3 hour busride this morning to meet my new comp, Elder Grajeda, in Zitácuaro. He´s awesome. I knew him from before when I was in Tianguistenco, he was in Lerma (the same zone) He was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Chihuahua, Mexico. So he speaks really good English. I´m still trying to figure out why the Lord sent me away from the ward I loved so much, but I guess I´ll find out later. I haven´t cried as hard as I did last night in awhile. Elder Willie and I stopped by our 5 favorite families to say goodbye, and it got really emotional for everybody. Elder Willie and I really made an impact on the ward. They hadn´t been able to trust the missionaries in awhile, and they trusted us with anything. We re-activated over 10 less active members, we baptized 2, and we set up next change with 7 people committed to baptism. I was thinking last night, and I thought of the different ways I could react to this curveball that the Lord is throwing me. I thought of it as a literal curveball. I can be surprised about it, and not be able to respond quick enough. Or I could see it coming, and decide not to swing. Or I could see it coming, and drive it into the opposite field. Yes, leaving Armas was hard, but I have to think of the will of the Lord and what he wants for his team of missionaries. Elder Grajeda and I are going to work our guts out, I know that. I just have to leave Armas behind for awhile and go to work here. It´s all in your head here in the mission field. Honestly, being on a mission is flat out the hardest thing I´ve ever done. First, you have to adapt physically. Here in la gran mision, we walk faster than anybody, which results in sore muscles, blisters, and fatigue every day. Then the houses aren´t great, and you have to adapt to living under what your used to. Then after your first 2 changes, it turns into a mental marathon. President Whitehead told me this my first day here,´´a mission isn´t a race, it´s a marathon.´´ And it´s so true. It´s so easy to check out for a day. But the ones who are focused on the Lord power through. A scripture in 2 Timothy says something like, The Lord hasn´t given us the spirit of fear, but of strength, love, and of a sound mind. The Lord doesn´t set us up to fail, we just have to trust in him. That´s all I have this week because I have over 20 pictures to send. haha I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

Elder Gradjeda (new comp)

new quote with the new agenda

Favorite man so far!!Hno. Sanchez

La familia Sanchez

la familia Plata

la familia Reina

la familia Fuentes

Hno. Fuentes on a stool

Elder Perez

Elder Christensen

Elder Saileilei (played running back for BYU pre mission)

Elder Valdez (they swapped ties)

district

district with zone leaders

"bautizona" (because their zone has the most baptisms)

Buildings from Polanco (with a Costco)

BishopMontoya (Jared said he looked like Ray Ramano)

Another week here in la gran misión! We baptized a girl named Jaretzi yesterday! She is 9 years old (which still counts as a convert) and she was so excited. Her sister is named Salma, and we are going to try to get here this week to end the changes. This change has gone by so fast! Elder Willie and I are having so much fun working hard and being  hilarious. We have so many inside jokes. I´m hoping we can stay one more change together in this ward, but we will find out on Saturday night. This week we had interviews with President, and it was really cool. We turned in our personal Living Christ assignment and he said he loved reading it. He bore his testimony to me in my interview about Christ, and he was so powerful. I tried to hint to him in the interview and in the email I just sent to him that Elder Willie and I want to stay one more change together. haha. In other news, we did interchanges this week with our district. I stayed in my area and Elder Ortiz from Cancun came to work with me. he´s a pretty weird guy. haha but we had fun. He only speaks Spanish, so that was also fun. Also, we had probably the weirdest day I´ll ever have on my mission on Saturday. We had 2 appointments in the morning, and they both didn´t answer the door, so we were walking around contacting in the street. We were contacting on a corner of 2 roads, and a car backed into my comp. It wasn´t going fast or anything, but it was obviously on purpose because it wasn´t necassary at all to be backing up where we were. He hit the car really hard with his hand and the car just drove off. haha and then some druggies were on the other corner of the road yelling at us for being in the road (we were right by the curb) haha. Then we went down the road and contacted another guy who said he didn´t believe in God, because he is God. haha he wasn´t drinking, he wasn´t doing drugs, and he had a firm belief that he is God. My comp. told him even though he was saying garbage, God still loves him. And he said,´´Sí, me amo.´´ which means, Yes I love me. hahaha. So then we went back to the same corner with the druggies because we were on our way to lunch with the Plata family. One of the druggies was alone on another corner and called us over, so we went and tried to contact him. He demanded my comp to give him a candy that my comp had in his hand, and Elder Willie gave him a little attitude. haha he said,´´what do you say?´´ like he´s a kid. The guy rolls his eyes and says por favor. haha. Then the guy told us that Mexico is going to kill everyone that´s not from Mexico. So naturally, we walk away. haha. Then we get to the food, and my comp and I are being joksters like we are, doing things with our ties to make the kids laugh. Then we showed it to the mom of the family, and she laughed so hard. haha after we ate, we were going to share something with them before we left. We started sharing a few of our inside jokes, and the mom was doubled over the armrest of the couch laughing so hard. haha we were laughing because she was laughing, and the 2 kids were just sitting there not laughing at all. haha then to finish the day later on, we had the baptism interview for Jaretzi, and went home. Best day ever...haha. I love this area so much. The Sanchez family gets cooler and cooler every day, and we have so much support from the members. In conclusion, I need to say Happy Birthday to my mom because her birthday is on the 28th this week! I love you mom, thank you for your example to me and for always showing how much you love me. I can´t thank you enough. That´s it for me this week! Besides a few funny pictures from the last week. I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

Another week here in la gran misión! We baptized a girl named Jaretzi yesterday! She is 9 years old (which still counts as a convert) and she was so excited. Her sister is named Salma, and we are going to try to get here this week to end the changes. This change has gone by so fast! Elder Willie and I are having so much fun working hard and being  hilarious. We have so many inside jokes. I´m hoping we can stay one more change together in this ward, but we will find out on Saturday night. This week we had interviews with President, and it was really cool. We turned in our personal Living Christ assignment and he said he loved reading it. He bore his testimony to me in my interview about Christ, and he was so powerful. I tried to hint to him in the interview and in the email I just sent to him that Elder Willie and I want to stay one more change together. haha. In other news, we did interchanges this week with our district. I stayed in my area and Elder Ortiz from Cancun came to work with me. he´s a pretty weird guy. haha but we had fun. He only speaks Spanish, so that was also fun. Also, we had probably the weirdest day I´ll ever have on my mission on Saturday. We had 2 appointments in the morning, and they both didn´t answer the door, so we were walking around contacting in the street. We were contacting on a corner of 2 roads, and a car backed into my comp. It wasn´t going fast or anything, but it was obviously on purpose because it wasn´t necassary at all to be backing up where we were. He hit the car really hard with his hand and the car just drove off. haha and then some druggies were on the other corner of the road yelling at us for being in the road (we were right by the curb) haha. Then we went down the road and contacted another guy who said he didn´t believe in God, because he is God. haha he wasn´t drinking, he wasn´t doing drugs, and he had a firm belief that he is God. My comp. told him even though he was saying garbage, God still loves him. And he said,´´Sí, me amo.´´ which means, Yes I love me. hahaha. So then we went back to the same corner with the druggies because we were on our way to lunch with the Plata family. One of the druggies was alone on another corner and called us over, so we went and tried to contact him. He demanded my comp to give him a candy that my comp had in his hand, and Elder Willie gave him a little attitude. haha he said,´´what do you say?´´ like he´s a kid. The guy rolls his eyes and says por favor. haha. Then the guy told us that Mexico is going to kill everyone that´s not from Mexico. So naturally, we walk away. haha. Then we get to the food, and my comp and I are being joksters like we are, doing things with our ties to make the kids laugh. Then we showed it to the mom of the family, and she laughed so hard. haha after we ate, we were going to share something with them before we left. We started sharing a few of our inside jokes, and the mom was doubled over the armrest of the couch laughing so hard. haha we were laughing because she was laughing, and the 2 kids were just sitting there not laughing at all. haha then to finish the day later on, we had the baptism interview for Jaretzi, and went home. Best day ever...haha. I love this area so much. The Sanchez family gets cooler and cooler every day, and we have so much support from the members. In conclusion, I need to say Happy Birthday to my mom because her birthday is on the 28th this week! I love you mom, thank you for your example to me and for always showing how much you love me. I can´t thank you enough. That´s it for me this week! Besides a few funny pictures from the last week. I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

Jared thought he deserved an award for finishing his chapstick

We thought president would like it because he uses M&Ms for Miembros y Misioneros. 

A member gave us some apple cider for our baptism. haha let me repeat. APPLE CIDER

M&M chairs....awesome

Hola!

Another week in la gran misión. First off, Presidente gave us an assignment. We read The Living Christ in our last zone meeting, and we talked about it a lot. It was cool to read and cool to think about Christ. Then he told us to write our own The Living Christ, with our own testimony and own thoughts. My comp and I were excited to do it, and mine is 5 pages front and back. It was a really cool thing to do, and I learned a lot. I think Presidente wants to read them or have a copy for interviews this week. In other news, we should have 1 maybe 2 baptisms this week. They´re 2 little angels and their mom just needs to kick her husband out to get baptized. So there´s that. Yesterday in church, our baptism from week 1 passed the sacrament for the first time! It was sooo cool to see one of our converts up at the front. He came and passed the sacrament to us, and that was one of the coolest things ever. Because we helped him with baptism, the holy ghost, and the priesthood, and now he´s helping us renew our baptismal covenants. So cool! Also yesterday I taught half of our class for our investigators. Usually we have a teacher there but he didn´t show up, so I taught half, and my comp taught half. It was a little rough, but I think it still went good. So more about la familia Sanchez.  they´re amazing. (the dad was the representitive of the church for 15 years) we have been working with them with the family we are trying to baptize, and they clearly understand the role of the member in the conversion process. They took the family to the visitors center by the temple, take them to church every week, and just are their friends. Also, Hno. Sanchez gave me another little statue.  it´s of a real statue here in Mexico that´s really old. I forgot exactly where it is, but it´s still sweet. So our shower drain unplugged a little bit, but the 2nd shower still has to shower on a bucket. haha. My comp´s feet are getting better, but they still hurt him a lot. He asked Hno. Sanchez to give him a blessing, and I got to be apart of it. It was one of the most powerful blessings I´ve ever heard. He talked about both of us in it even though he was blessing my comp.  but he said one things that made me open my eyes in shock.  I asked Elder Willie afterwards if I understood him correctly, and I did. He said that Elder Willie and I will see the 2nd coming.  So I guess this is a warning to everyone out there. Be ready, it´s coming. haha. I loved the sign that was in Grandpa and Grandma Barton´s house.´´Jesus is coming. Look busy´´ But it was a powerful blessing. Anyways, that´s really all I have this week. I love you all so much! 

Con amor,

Elder Barton

 another picture of my desk, more personalized

So this guy in HUGE. haha Hno. Sanchez said,´´el es un Barton. Y tres Barton´´ haha referring to his height and width

hola

selfie, Mexican style (cuz he's tall)

cotton candy the best he's ever had

pictures from his brothers at his desk

that's the part they have to have

his first steak he's eaten in a LONG time

Hola!

Another week in el gran barrio de Armas. This week was a little better than last week. We should have 2 baptisms this week, and one more set up for the end of the change. It´s a family of 4, but the husband wants no part of it. Well here´s the situation. The mom and dad aren´t really married, and she needs to leave him in order to be baptized. Because you can´t live with someone that you aren´t married to. And with the kids, all we need is permission from both the parents. The dad wasn´t going to give permission. So we sent our big guns of the ward (Hermano Sanchez) to get the job done. He was funny because he told us before he went. ´´voy a hablar con el en el nombre del Señor para pedir permisión de las niñas. Con el Espíritu!´´ haha long story short, he got the job done! He is so confident in the spirit it´s insane. He will literally take on any challenge because he knows he has help. It was a lesson for me because I still have fear sometimes that something won´t work out. But will God let us down? Claro que no! So we had permission for the girls, but the mom still had to kick the dad out. Everyone was trying to persuade her beforehand anyways. He´s a jerk and a bad guy in general. So the next day we go to talk to Hno. Sanchez´s daughter, and she told us that he was moving out as we speak! We had a miracle in our hands. But as soon as we got excited, 2 days later the guy moves back in because he realizes he can´t make it in the real world without someone paying for him. And she´s a little scared to stand up for herself....so we are working with that now, but we are still baptizing the girls next Sunday. In other news, the mail came last week! haha I got 2 letters from my mommy, the letter from the Crapo family, and Cheryl´s card! Thank you for those, they make me smile. I loved the 2 talks that was sent in those letters. My companion and I have shared more than one thing in lessons from each of those. So by our apartment building, there´s a Christian rock church. Yes, it´s a rock and roll church. Every Sunday morning around 9 or so, we here the bands. Every time the music starts, my companion says,´´oh church started!´´ haha it´s pretty funny to listen, because they´ll have high tempo music, then a slow song every now and then. So today for P-day, we got together with our zone to play soccer, basketball, and eat lunch at a nice restaurant. I found out that I have no chance at soccer against Latinos. But they don´t have a chance against us Americans when it comes to basketball. haha it was fun. We went to a nice buffet after. Dang was it good! I haven´t had steak in so long. Also, in the zone meeting last week, we did a game to test our knowledge of the principles found in Preach My Gospel. There are 42 principles, and we need to memorize them. For example, principle 16 is Reinos de Gloria, and 23 is obediencia. Etc. We had 2 people up at a table, and someone would say a number, and the first person to say the principle gets to stay. I´ve memorized them already, so I knew it would be a fun time. haha. One Elder was up at the table for awhile when I got sent up for the first time. The other elder, who is going home in 3 weeks, started to trash talk. haha. ´´oh he´s knew he doesn´t know them yet!´´ haha so I just smiled. The principle was said, and I smoked him. haha. Everyone laughed and I stayed up for awhile. haha. That´s it for this week. As for things I need, I can get everything I need here. But it would still be nice to get stuff like batteries, foot powder, chapstick, etc in a package so I don´t have to use as much of my church fund. Thanks for all the love and support that I can feel each and every day. I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

Hola!

Another week in Armas! It was kind of a rough week. First, we had a family of 6 drop us...it was really hard. The family consists of the Grandma, her son who´s like 30 years old, his GF, and 3 kids that aren´t their´s together. The grandma is really tough, because her attitude is rough. She had a rough life, and she told us she made herself how she is because of her life. We came by on Friday afternoon, and found the grandma, her son, and another guy with them drinking alcohol. They were slightly drunk, and it caught us by surprise, because we didn´t know that would be a problem. So we tried to talk to them for 5 minutes, but it didn´t work. They kept offering us some, and the 3 kids were just chilling out in the room with all that going on. So we just decided to leave, and the grandma got all offended. She thought we were judging her by leaving, and she told us not to come back. It was really sad because we loved them, especially the kids. The 3 kids were 13, 10, and 6 years old. It was really sad because we thought of those kids growing up there. Later on that night, we saw them walking in the street. Every single one of them ignored us. We are pretty sure the grandma turned them all against us. So that was rough...and we also lost another family of 4 just because we were tired of trying to find them at their house. Because they were never there. Besides investigators, we had our shower plug up. The water only goes down really slowly, usually it takes the whole day. We kept showering with our sandals and everything, and my comp ended up with a foot infection. He´s fine, and we went to a doctor for him and everything, but I somehow avoided it. We are trying to fix it, but it´s hard when you work all day. So we ended up moving some chairs in there to stand on. haha try not to imagine...it was pretty fun...not. One cool thing that happened this week was we ate lunch made by our baptism from 1 week ago. He made us salad and chicked. It was a mountain of salad, and a bunch of pieces of chicken. It was cool to eat with a recent convert. Also, Hermano Sanchez in our ward (the representative of the church) gave me this cool jaguar statue thing and like 8 light up pens from his company. haha. I´ll send the pictures in a minute. Lastly, in our zone meeting this last week, we did a practice on Inspired Questions. Which basically, are questions that make the investigator realize that this is the true church. I was nervous because I´m still not good at coming up with good questions. So my comp and I started and we were listening to another missionary act out an investigator. We were teaching, and all of a sudden I had it. I asked it, and stunned the investigator. haha. I realized that I can´t plan what I´m going to say, I just need to be diligent in listening and paying attention to promptings. Also, if you guys can, I need the email address of Shawn Morley. Brandon Morley´s dad. An hermano in my ward wants it, they were companions in the mission field. His name is Hermano Fuentes. He´d really appreciate that. I have a lot of funny pictures to send from this week so I better go. I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

glowing pens and a statue from the guy pictured below

bridge overpass, not dumpster

trying to look official

ward mission leader in the middle

these were in there apartment when they moved in

they assume thugs lived there last

Mexico isn't changing Jared a bit...